bodhiyoga's blog

Metta bhavana (mb) is an important practice that has a lot to teach us in the Western World today. I focus on the Western World because that is where I have been living for the past 16 years and it has formed me in significant ways. However, coming from Ethiopia, I also have the opportunity to see the Western life as an outsider. I see how the (predominantly Western) values of liberalism and individualism are being promoted around the world with no reservation or qualification. These values are closely linked to the Neoclassical Economics ideals of egoism, individual competition, and the commodification of nature and community and are promoted as progress both in the public and private space. The Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef puts it beautifully when we says “‘[w]e are trapped, whether we want to be or not, in the language of economics, which has domesticated the entire world. A language domesticates us when it manages to permeate our everyday life and our everyday forms of expression. The language of economics is used in the kitchen, among friends, in the scientific associations, in the centers of culture, in the club, in the work place and even in the bedroom. Whatever part of the world, we are dominated by the language of economics and it heavily influences our behavior and perceptions’ (Max-Neef 1991, p.108).